Pressure from a Bradford building society chief has helped bring about changes to financial protection rules that will benefit savers who hold joint membership of merging societies.

Iain Cornish, chief executive of Bradford-based Yorkshire Building Society, which is set to absorb the smaller Barnsley at the end of the year, met officials from the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority as part of a lobbying process which brought about the change.

Skipton Building Society, which will take over the Scarborough next year, also discussed with the FSA ways to enable savers with both societies to qualify for double protection.

As a result, savers with membership of both the Skipton and Scarborough building societies at the date of the proposed merger, expected to be the end of February, will benefit from new rules that offer them additional cover from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Following completion of the merger, they will have £100,000 of protection for their savings and £200,000 for joint accounts.

To achieve this, all Scarborough Building Society savings accounts will be transferred to Skipton, as planned, but will retain the name ‘Scarborough’ in the title.

Pass-books and statements for these ac-counts will all contain the Scarborough name.

Skipton will also maintain a separate record of all former Scarborough saving members.

David Cutter, the Skipton’s deputy chief executive, said: “We are delighted to have concluded our review of the new rules with such a positive outcome for members. “This is another example of how building societies are putting their members’ financial security first.

“By achieving this confirmation; that the new rules will apply to savers who are members of both societies at the date of the proposed merger, we believe this will bring much needed clarity to the situation and give even greater protection to their money.”

David Holmes, corporate affairs manager at Yorkshire Building Society, said the Society had been among those at the forefront of lobbying for protection rule changes He said: “We have lobbied very hard for this and Iain Cornish attended several meetings with officials at both the Treasury and the FSA.

“We are delighted that a way has been found to ensure that customers who are members of both societies involved in a merger will see their level of protection doubled.”

Changes to the rules for the FSCS came in to effect on December 1. The rules provide savers, who are members of both societies involved in a merger, with individual cover for £50,000 of savings (£100,000 for joint accounts) for each society, provided the businesses of the two merged societies continue under separate names, even though they have been combined into one group.

Yorkshire Building Society stepped in to rescue the Barnsley Building Society in October after the South Yorkshire-based firm identified possible losses of up to £10m deposited with failing Icelandic banks. The deal will see the Barnsley, which is the UK’s 34th largest building society with assets of £376 million, 60,000 members and just eight branches, become part of the Yorkshire but retain its local name and branches.

The deal will complete on December 31. YBS is the UK’s third largest society with more than 1.9 million members, about 200 branches and agencies and total assets of more than £20 billion. The Scarborough also sought protection from a merger and approached the Skipton after seeing its profits and capital position hit by the turbulent financial markets and continuing falls in house prices.

The new society will retain the Skipton name with its head office in the town and will be a top five building society with 860,000 members and £16 billion of assets.